The issue

Organic farming is a win, win, win! Science shows that organic agriculture can produce enough food to feed a growing world population while protecting our health and the environment. Organic farming protects us from toxic pesticides, is more profitable for farmers and conserves the soil, water and biodiversity that we need to feed the world for generations to come. It is also a climate solution. In times of drought and flood, organic outperforms industrial agriculture. And compared with industrial farming, it conserves water, saves energy and captures more carbon in the soil.

While the United States represents 43 percent of the global market for organic food, less than one percent of total U.S. cropland is devoted to organic farming. Expanding organic agriculture is a tremendous economic opportunity for American farmers and an important conservation strategy for our nation.

The science is clear: with agroecological methods of farming, like organic, we don’t have to rely on toxic pesticides and synthetic fertilizers to produce abundant food. That’s great news for people, pollinators and all living things. We know that the need for resilient, regenerative farming is more urgent than ever. Industrial agriculture costs the world an estimated $3 trillion annually in environmental damage, and climate change threatens future food security.

Friends of the Earth works to advance organic for all: for our health, our families and our communities; for the farmers and farmworkers who grow our food; for the land that provides us with nourishment, the pollinators that make food production possible and the ecosystems that sustain all of life. Learn more about agroecological farming.

What we’re doing

What you can do

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As a socio-economic system, agroecology values the life of people and planet over profits. It requires the reshaping of markets to be based on equity, solidarity and the ethics of responsible production and consumption. It creates space for women, people of color and youth to take leadership.

As a political movement, agroecology is an action agenda to achieve food sovereignty led by small-scale food producers and their allies. It is a growing movement to completely transform our system of production, distribution and consumption rather than conform to industrial models.

In the U.S. and around the globe, farmers and consumers, indigenous communities, environmental advocates and social justice champions are coming together to create agroecological farming systems that protect the environment and treat all workers in the food system with respect.

Farming for the Future busts three common myths about feeding the world that keep us on the path of business as usual. The report also details robust scientific evidence that demonstrates that creating a democratic, organic and agroecological farming system is key to feeding all people, now and into the future.

This investigation reveals an array of pesticide industry tactics to slow urgently needed pollinator protection measures at federal and state levels. The pesticide industry has weakened and delayed pesticide reforms and is shaping new pollinator “protection” plans nationwide that do little to protect bees and a lot to protect industry profits.